NINETEEN
So when I say take my hand I mean take a chance, take off fears, take off expectations and leave them at your door as you step out, step out of banality and into the wild …
–from ‘Risk It, Baby’, by These Exiles
SOMETHING WAS PULLING ME out of sleep, and I hated it.
‘Ughhh.’
That was all I could manage. Sleep was so good, so precious, and now I was waking up?
Waking up with a smile on my face. A smile I didn’t understand. What was so good that I –
My eyes snapped open as memories poured through me.
Jessy.Jessy, laughing as we walked in the park. Jessy, listening to me at that dim sum place. Jessy, grinning as she got a seagull tattooed on her. Jessy, panting and quivering under me –
I looked over.
The bed was empty.
The sudden swell of disappointment was so tangible I could almost taste it. My bed was empty, my bedroom too as I glanced about in the hope that she had just got up.
I tried to quieten my breathing, tried to listen to see if she’d just popped to the loo or hopped in the shower.
My flat was completely quiet – the kind of silence that only came from emptiness.
Sagging back on to a bed that now felt lonely, I tugged a hand through my hair as I tried to think why.
Despite the fact that it could only be, what, eight, nine in the morning, Jessy was already gone.
She had fucked me and then left me? It didn’t make sense.
I glanced down and noticed I’d pulled on my PJ bottoms at some point, which made me feel a little less physically exposed, but still so emotionally vulnerable that nausea roiled in my stomach.
Where was she? Why had she just … gone?
I looked around. She hadn’t even left a note.
I tried not to panic. I thought we had spoken truthfully last night when we’d shared about our feelings. I’d told her, hadn’t I, that this was more than the contract, more than a fake relationship?
It was hard not to feel a little taken advantage of. I mean, was that all it had been about? Now she’d slept with me, she was out of here?
I shook my head. Jessy wasn’t like that. She wasn’t Celine.
Still bleary-eyed, and wishing we’d bothered to close the curtains so I hadn’t woken up so early, I groaned as I reached out and grabbed my phone.
07:23. Fuck.
I blinked. And a message from Jessy.
After staring at my phone a long, hard minute, I tapped in my passcode and read her message.
Jessy
Sorry about leaving while you were asleep. Had to run – desperately in need of new clothes – but last night was perfect. Same again tonight? Minus the curry sauce x
I released a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding, tension leaking out of my body with it. My smile was bright and I kind of wished she could have seen it.Same again?
